Steaming on the Flathead (Lake and River)
1910 Launch of the “new” Klondike Steamer at Polson (photo provided by the Paul Fugleberg Collection at Montana Memory Project)
1920’s shot of the Klondike at the Narrows (photo provided by the Montana Memory Project)
The steamer Helena built by James Kehoe of Bigfork. (photo provided by the Kehoe Collection)
The Klondyke appears to be unloading in Bigfork Bay in the early 1900s (photo provided by the Morton J. Elrod Collection at the Montana Memory Project)
The 150-foot steamer State of Montana docked in Polson in the early 1900s. (photo provided by the Montana Memory Project)
Steamer Montana offices in Polson around 1900. (photo provided by the Paul Fugleberg Collection - Montana Memory Project)
The Klondike, another steamer, and the skiff Missoula at Yellow Bay in the around 1915 (photo provided by the Morton J. Elrod Collection - Montana Memory Project)
Steamer Crescent on the Flathead River in the early 1900s (photo provided by the Ernie Von Euen Collection)
The Klondyke at Rollins Bay around 1905 (photo provided by The Montana Memory Project)
The Crescent and Tom Carter at Polson in the late 1890s. (photo provided by the Polson Flathead Historical Museum)
One side is rocky and steep while the other is circuitous and slightly less dramatic, making any journey along the shores of Flathead Lake somewhat of a dichotomy. The Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d'Oreille people primarily traversed the west side of the lake, using passes to cross over into the Swan Valley as opposed to regularly venturing along the east shore through what is now Bigfork. By the 1880s, when settlers began coming to western Montana in larger numbers, this dichotomy led many to surmise that the most efficient way to move goods and people along this north-south route would be by steamship...
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